


Once More, From The Top

by Living_Free



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Cassandra is a good big sister, Crack, Damian finds love, Dick is easily manipulated by love, Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Jason is emotionally vulnerable, Tim makes deals with sentient energy beings, Time Travel, batbros, batfamily
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-10 19:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15298659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Living_Free/pseuds/Living_Free
Summary: So Jason killed the Penguin on live TV, and revealed everyone’s identities. Oopsie.Naturally, the batsibings have to fix the situation. And what’s a little time travel to the Bats? Easy as pie.





	1. Oops, I did it again

**Author's Note:**

> What is Rebirth? What is a New-52? I don’t care, just give me some good ol’ Batfamily shenanigans. 
> 
> Please leave kudos and comments to fill the empty place in my soul.

Dick was in a massive panic. Jason had just killed the Penguin on live TV and had put all of their identities at risk. In his Nightwing garb, Dick cursed. He had to get his siblings off of patrol and into a safe house immediately. 

He grabbed Damian first, because of course he did. Damian was raging at Jason’s stupidity- “Don’t call your brother stupid, Dami.” 

“But he is!”

Well. He had to choose his battles. 

They grabbed Tim next, when he was hiding behind a Starbucks. “Hiding now, coffee later!”

“Aw, man. Stupid Jason.”

“Don’t-“ Oh, fine. 

Cass was next. “Jason. Where.”

“Cassie, don’t-“

“Jason. Emotionally compromised. Didn’t take his medicines. Need to get him.”

Dick loved his sister. 

“Let’s go get him, then,” he grinned. 

-x-X-x-

“You are in so much trouble!” Dick growled, yanking Jason into the safehouse by his ear. 

“Ow ow ow-“

As soon as the door shut, Damian leapt at Jason and kicked him squarely on the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. “Todd you compete ignoramus!” He cried, punching every inch of Jason’s body, “What have you done! You have compromised everyone! I should strike you down where you stand for putting Grayson at risk!”

“Aw, Dami,” Dick smiled. 

“No coffee for Timmy,” Tim said sadly. “I’ll have to run away with Kon now, and become a farmboy. Milking cows, brushing the horses, and wait for my rugged man to come home after a long day in the field and have hot sweaty barn sex with me and then eat apple pie. That doesn’t sound too bad, actually,” Tim mused. “Thanks, Jay.”

“Drake gets to live with animals? That is so unfair. Grayson, we’re going to live on the farm too,” Damian declared. 

“No one is going to live on the farm,” Dick said stoutly. “Tim, stop dreaming of eloping with Kon. We are going to stick together and fix this.”

“Aw,” Tim pouted, and willed his aching loins back to their usual state of cold noodle. 

Jason groaned and flopped onto the one ratty sofa in the safehouse. “Fuck. Fuck, I messed up. I was so angry when I saw that fat, beaky twit-“

“I am so disappointed in you, Little Wing,” Dick said. crossing his arms. 

“Fuck off, Dickhead.”

Dick quickly dialed the Manor and put the phone on speaker. “Master Jason,” Alfred’s voice rang out, “I am so very disappointed in you.” Jason cringed. “You have placed your family at risk. Just wait until you get home, I will have you scrubbing the stairs in penance.”

Jason’s eyes widened in horror. He’d blown the family’s cover, including Alfred’s. Everyone was in danger. “Oh, fuck me.”

“That’s more like it,” Dick sniffed. “Now that you realize the gravity of the situation, we need to get down to fixing it. Bruce is not pleased.”

“Is that why he’s not here?” Jason flinched. 

“He’s on the Watchtower. The official excuse is that he’s on a luxury island getaway with no wifi, so he can’t see what’s going on. He’s also hopping mad.”

Jason buried his face in the armrest. “I fucked up so bad,” he whined. “I should have killed him in a warehouse somewhere.”

“Or not killed him at all,” Dick said. “What did his death bring you, Jason? Did it bring Willis back? Was it worth the revenge?”

Jason responded by burying his head further into the sofa crease. Dick sat down and spoke to his arse. “It’s never worth it, Little Wing. Killing someone will only do you damage. The other person just ceases to exist. It’s you that has to carry the pain and the repercussions. And no one wants that for you. We love you, Jay.”

There was a series of broken agreements and affirmative mumbling from the rest of them that was not up to Dick’s standards. He glared at them until they synchronized and said, “We love you, Jason.”

Jason sighed and extracted himself from the sofa crease. “I get it,” he muttered. “But now what? It’s not like I can go back in time and stop myself from killing him.” 

“Ahem.”

Everyone looked at Tim, who was fidgeting in the corner. “Timmy, you can time travel?”

“Well. Kind of,” Tim admitted. “Remember when Darksied kinda killed Bruce and threw him back in time?” Everyone nodded and Dick got teary again. “Well, when he came back, he was controlled by omega energy. When everyone else was fighting him, I kind of siphoned some energy off and kept it. I’ve been experimenting with it to, um, get it to take me back to a certain time period. So I’m pretty sure that we can go back and stop all of this.”

Dick looked overjoyed. “Timmy, you’re a genius!”

Jason looked conflicted. “I’m pretty sure that past-me won’t listen to us,” he said. “I’ve got a teeny tiny anger management issue.”

“Listen well, Todd,” Damian said, stalking over and clambering onto Jason’s lap, and putting his face within inches of Jason’s own, “You are going to listen to reason, if at have to tie you down and torture you into submission. You are not going to place our lives in jeopardy because you have daddy issues. Do you understand me?”

Jason nodded, feeling rightfully scared of the midget standing on his stomach. 

“Good,” Damian said, and stepped down, purposefully stepping on Jason’s crotch on the way down. “Drake, get the omega energy and program it. We are going to stop Todd.”

-x-X-x-

The omega energy took some coaxing to take them into the past. 

“Please,” Tim pleaded. “I’ll feed you that dark matter that you love so much.”

The energy pulsed distrustfully. 

“I’ll get a whole jar of the stuff for you, just please take us a few hours into the past,” Tim wheedled. “Jason fucked up. If we don’t fix this, then I’ll have to go into hiding and no one will ever feed you dark matter ever again.”

The omega energy vibrated in a panic, before pulsing out another message. 

“Sure, sure, anything you want. Just take us three hours into the past,” Tim said. 

“Tim, what did you just agree to?” Jason asked, eyeing the sentient ball of energy distrustfully. 

“I promised it two jars of dark matter and a vantage point over Dick’s locker area.”

“You pimped Dick out to the sentient energy blob?” Jason asked. “Nice,” he said, raising his hand for a high-five, only to retract it when Damian tried to bite his hand. 

Tim let the energy out of its specialized anti-gravity semi stasis field and allowed it to envelop all of them. “Well, we’re off to change the past. Any last words?” Dick asked nervously. 

Tim grinned. “Yeet.”

And then there was nothing. 

-x-X-x-

“So, this is the past,” Dick observed. “We appear to be in the Batcave. Jay, where were you?”

“Stalking Penguin,” he replied.

“Brad brought us here for a reason,” Tim said. “We have to figure out why.”

“Brad?”

“I named the energy. It felt kinda weird to call it ‘the sentient dark energy blob’ when it was helping us.”

“Silence your noise hole, Drake,” Damian hissed. “We have to scout the cave to find something that can help us-“

“Dami?”

Everyone turned around to see Dick Grayson from the past standing behind them curiously. He spotted himself and cocked his head. “Did you time travel?”

Brad the energy blob emitted a squealing sound and oozed over to past-Dick, vibrating with a high frequency sound. Tim ran after it and stuck it back in its bottle. “Later,” he hissed. 

Damian ran over, clearly overjoyed at having not one, but two Graysons. “You are correct, past-Grayson. We are from three hours into the future. We are here to stop past-Todd from ruining our lives.”

“Jason,” past-Dick frowned, “what did you do?”

The judgement of two Dicks was too much to handle. “Fuck off with your judgement! Penguin killed my dad!”

Past-Dick gasped tremulously, and wavered. Damian leapt froward and caught him before he fell in a swoon. “Penguin killed Bruce?”

“What? No-“

“Willis Todd,” Tim supplied. 

Past-Dick frowned. “Willis Todd-“

“I know!” Jason cried out of frustration. “He was a bad father! He didn’t treat me or my mom right, he lived a life of crime, he drank, he was a mean asshole, but he was still my dad!” Jason stopped, heaving deep breaths.

“He worked as a goon to pay for mom’s medication. He whooped my ass when he caught me skipping school. He-“ Jason paused, “he took me to the circus. When I got typhoid, he yelled at me, but he pulled double shifts to pay the hospital bill.”

Both Dicks converged on him, pulsing with Love. “Oh, Little Wing-“

“I’m tired of having people die on me,” Jason said, sounding defeated. “I’m tired of letting the scum of Gotham take and take and take from me, even if it was Willis Todd. I just-“ Jason couldn’t bring himself to talk anymore, with two Dicks plastering themselves to him in a hug. 

“You don’t have to say anything else, Little Wing,” Dick said soothingly. “We understand.”

“We do?” Damian muttered, eyeing the scene jealously. 

Tim nodded. “Yeah. We do. I didn’t like my dad all that much, but it still hurt when he was killed. It felt like someone was out to get you- like it was an attack on you, not the dead man. And I get why Jason acted like he did. I nearly did the same, with Boomerang,” Tim admitted. 

“You did?”

“Yeah,” Tim nodded. “Although, I set it up to make sure that it couldn’t be traced back to me in either of my alter egos,” he said pointedly, making Jason flinch. 

Cassandra twisted Jason’s ear. “Anger management classes. Every week. No excuses.”

“Ow. Fine,” Jason conceded, still trapped between the Dicks. He looked at his brothers to help liberate him.

Damian cleared his throat meaningfully. “Grayson, the stress of this ordeal of having our identities put at risk has filled me with apprehension and given me acid reflux.”

“Oh, Dami!” The Dicks cried, and immediately descended upon him to dole out hugs and kisses and reassurances of their love. 

Free of the twin Dicks, Jason shook himself out like a wet dog. “Ugh. Now what?”

“Clearly, Brad has brought us here to meet past-Dick. Logically, we need to work with him to fix this situation,” Tim said. “Dick!” He yelled at the mushy duo, “what now?”

The Dicks let go of Damian and looked at each other. “We need to stop Jason from getting to Penguin,” Dick said. “I think we’re going to need everyone’s help on this.”

“Even Bruce?”

Dick looked conflicted. “Maybe not Bruce,” he said carefully. “But we need to call in past-Tim, past-Dami, and past-Cass. The aim of this mission is to restrain past-Jason and help him through his murderous rage.”

“Past me is at my safehouse now,” Jason said. “Finding me is easy. How do you stop me, though? I’m pretty pissed off.”

“With the power of Love,” the Dicks said. 

“A sedative dart,” Tim suggested. 

“A knife,” Damian said. 

Cass mimed a karate chop to a sensitive part of his anatomy. 

What is wrong with these people, Jason wondered in alarm. “I think a combination of all of those things would be best. No knife,” he said, rounding on Damian. 

“Tt.”

“I’ll call my Timmy, Dami, and Cass,” past-Dick said, and went off. 

Soon, everyone but Jason was standing with their counterparts. 

“Todd you imbecile, you see the consequences of your harebrained actions!?” Past-Damian cried. “I should strike you down where you stand to safeguard the rest of our family. Future self, corral the Graysons to safety. Drakes, prepare the holding cell. Cassandras, help me tie Todd down!”

“You heard the man,” Future-Damian said, “everyone get into place!”  
Tim sighed. “I have a better plan.”

“Does it involve beating Todd up?”

“A little bit.”

“Hey!”

-x-X-x-

Tim was a boy who stayed true to his word. Jason pointed out the location of the safehouse his past self was holed up in, and waited while his siblings descended upon him.

“Little wing, Little wing, let me in!” 

“Not by the hair of my chinny chin chin,” past-Jason replied. “Also, how did you find me? Fuck off.”

“Please let me in, Little Wing,” Dick called. “I want to talk to you.”

“Buzz off.”

“I have doughnuts.”

The door opened, and everyone flooded in. Jason stared. “What the f-“

The Damians tackled past-Jason to the ground while the Tims got him with a sedative dart. It was always nice to see a plan succeed.

-x-X-x-


	2. Emotions, Love, and Dick, Ugh.

Past-Jason came to in a holding cell in the batcave, hunkered down next to his future self. “What the fuck,” he said eloquently.

Future-Jay sighed. “We done mucked up, man.”

“What?”

“I’m from the future where we killed Penguin,” Jason enlightened his past self. “We shot him. And kinda revealed our identity. And those of everyone associated with us. On live TV.”

“That is bad,” Past-Jason agreed sagely. “So...now what?”

“We wait for the telecast to end, and then...wait. In three hours, you’ll be me, and that’ll be that. And Cass is going to sign us up for anger management classes. Dick is going to be an unbearable hen. Tim is going to generate dark matter, and Damian wants a duel to the death.”

“Tim’s gonna what now?”

“He needs to make dark matter, because he has this time travel energy blob that-“

“Jason Todd, you shall die at my hand today.”

Both Jason’s looked up from their confinement to see a very angry Artemis standing outside of their cell. Damian had latched onto her, and was lugging a sack of weapons behind him. “Would you like a mace or a spear, my lady?” He asked reverently. 

“I will use naught but my bare hands and my prolific rage.”

“So beautiful,” Damian muttered, clearly besotted by the angry Amazon. “I shall strive to make myself worthy enough to ask you for your hand in marriage one day.”

“You were going to kill the fat bird man,” Artemis hissed at the Jasons, “and mess up everyone’s lives! You incorrigible fool! What have an told you about controlling your emotions? This is why men should not be allowed! You have no idea-“

“Red Him make Red Her angry-sad,” Bizarro said, floating in. “Red Him in deep shit, now.”

Jason sighed and settled in for two more hours of family and friends guilt tripping him. Artemis was eviscerating him while Bizarro made sympathetic noises at the appropriate times, the Dicks were making emotional cow eyes and hugging their respective Damians, the Casses were using Artemis’ diss track of Jason to choreograph a synchronized ballet routine, and the Tims were composing sexually charged texts to Kon-El. 

Jason sighed and shared a small smile with himself. He couldn’t believe that he’d almost lost all of this. 

-x-X-x-

There hours later, the past and the future had become the present, and Jason was let out of his cell. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson, Little wing,” Dick said severely. 

“Yeah,” Jason sighed. “No killing when you’re in the grips of rage. It makes your murders sloppy.”

“No, Jason.”

“I kid, I kid,” Jason grinned, and Dick’s expression softened. Seeing that Jason was outside his cell, Cass came over and handed several leaflets for anger management courses. 

“You pick. We go together.”

Jason’s eyebrows hiked up his forehead. “You don’t have to come with me, Cass.”

“I am big sister. I will support my little brother.”

Tim had nothing to add to the conversation, busy positioning Brad’s stasis chamber at an angle where he could have unrestricted viewing of Dick’s bum. 

“There’s one more thing, Little Wing,” Dick said meaningfully. “Follow me.”

Jason followed his big brother into the main house, and into the entertainment center, where Bruce was sitting on the couch, balancing a bowl of popcorn (plain) on his stomach, and watching a David Attenborough documentary.

“Er...”

“You were so keen to avenge a man who meant so little to you,” Dick explained, “that you were going to hurt the man who gave you this family. That’s your father, Jay,” Dick said, pointing at Bruce. “Bruce is the one who loved you unconditionally, even when he didn’t agree with you. He’s the one who cried for a year when you died. He’s the one who gave you a home, and a family, and never gave up on you time after time after time. 

“He’s the one who made sure that you stayed in school. He made you Robin. He tucked you into bed, worried over you when you were sick, and kissed your booboos better.”

“To be fair, only you did the last one,” Jason said. 

“The point remains,” Dick stressed, his booboo kissing lips taut in a line of disapproval. “Don’t lose your dad to avenge your father, Jason.”

Jason looked at Bruce, chewing on his popcorn like a goat with a cud, and felt a surge of affection and guilt. Dick nudged his shoulder. “Go on, Little wing,” he said, “talk to your dad.”

Jason skittered into the room, feeling very unsure of himself. Bruce looked up from the television and met Jason’s eyes, clearly surprised at his second child willingly seeking him out. He held out the bowl of popcorn.

Jason sat down and took a deep breath. “Bruce, I need to talk to you.”

Bruce’s eyebrows danced. “Regarding?”

Here goes nothing. “Well, Cass and I were thinking of taking these classes...”


End file.
